When people hear the word “impersonal,” they often think “indifferent,” “unconcerned.”  As we use the word, it means “not personal” — not taking things personally, not getting lost in our own personal thinking, not focused on ourselves, not caught up in our insecure, ego-thinking.  That means not wondering how we’re doing, what people think of us, whether we look good enough, how to prove ourselves.  That means not judging ourselves, not comparing ourselves to others, not feeling bad about ourselves.  When we stop taking life personally, we are fully engaged in life, in touch with other people, and able to be responsive to the moment, rather than reactive.

What people call “disorders of the brain” are a major source of distress for many people, handling their own different ways of thinking or trying to help their family members handle theirs.  Autism, ADHD, and other Disorders of the Brain do not doom people to less than satisfactory lives at all, but they do frighten people and those around them who are baffled why they don’t see the world the way most people do.  Mind and the brain are not the same.  The power to think is universal.  Reactions to our personal thinking can inhibit our appreciation of the gift of Thought or our willingness to embrace our own way of thinking.  There is still much we don’t know, but what we do know is that no one is broken or damaged.

This is part two of our discussion of brain disorders, focused on the common issue of ADHD.  Many people struggle with ADHD, and how to “manage” life tasks with it.  First, there are good medicines available that slow down thinking, and there is no shame in taking them appropriately.  Second, over time, we have come to recognize more and more that those with ADHD use the gift of thought differently, and often to their own advantage, once they understand it and come to understand how thought works and how not to get sidetracked and overwhelmed.  The struggles people have are more related to fear and anxiety about their thinking than to the way they use the gift of thought.

Sexual abuse is a horrible experience for people of any age or gender, and often generates feelings of shame, fear of being damaged, unwillingness to seek help, hesitancy about any relationships.  No trauma, not even the worst personal trauma, can break our innate well-being, which is a spiritual truth, formless and invincible.  Only the way we think about trauma over time can obscure our natural well-being and get in the way of healing and feeling safe in the world.  The spiritual energy of creation flows purely through us and gives us an opportunity for a fresh start with every new thought.  We can find peace, no matter what.

Parenting becomes challenging as children grow and develop their own thinking and start experiencing their own moods and reactions.  It helps to remember that children are all individuals, with the same access to wisdom and mental well-being as grownups, and with the same free will and free thought to develop their own way of seeing life.  It takes love and understanding, and not taking things personally, to help children bring out the best in themselves, and learn to use their feelings as barometers to their moods, and see not to take negative thinking seriously.  Parents are their models.

Once we begin to notice how the power of thinking works and how we change as our understanding deepens, it becomes a thrilling lifetime learning experience to experience new insights and keep growing and changing.  We are taught early on that “figuring out” is the way to learn, but very few people are taught that insight is the way to grow and find deeper and deeper peace and contentment.  We learn facts that are already known from our intellect.  But insight brings us fresh and deeper understanding of our own experience and true knowledge about the possibilities that arise from a quieter mind, looking to see beyond the already known.

It’s easy to get addicted to troubled thinking because our worst moments, or our most negative thoughts look and feel more significant to us than ordinary everyday thoughts.  We get frightened, embarrassed, discouraged, upset, angry, etc. about them.  In other words, they bring us bad feelings.  Bad feelings get our attention.  They’re supposed to.  They tell us we’re overthinking, stuck in the past, using our memory to try to figure out what we don’t know.  When we find our minds racing and our feelings plummeting, the answer is not to think more about the thoughts that are bringing us down, but to take that as a signal to turn away, and allow all those thoughts to pass.  Then we drop into peace and wisdom comes.

In traditional psychology, practitioners often see “resistance” in clients.  Resistance, from the standpoint of the Principles, is really hopelessness.  People lose hope that they have innate mental well-being, that they always have access to their own wisdom, that they are born with the gift of creating their own reality, and that peace of mind is always within them, even though they can obscure it indefinitely with personal thinking.  As we get trapped in our intellect, which only knows the past, we are living in the prison of our own thoughts.  Rediscovering hope is seeing that it is one thought away, and we hold the key to the presence, peace of mind and trust in wisdom that sets us free.